Identifying Types of Loss and Grief: Part One
If you are someone who knows grief, you recognize what a bewildering, disorienting and isolating experience it can be. The surrealism of life after loss may not last forever, but the foggy confusion of complicated feelings seem to linger for many. Grief can feel as tangible as a deep cut in your chest, and as ephemeral as trying to hold on to the sound of your deceased loved one’s laugh. Grief as a concept is high-level and existential, while also primal and foundational. There are so many aspects to the grief experience, that it can be helpful to form some loose categories to orient ourselves in the overwhelm.
This post is a two-parter in which we identify different types of loss experiences and types of grief. Part one here, defines types of loss experiences.
Contemporary research on grief has identified many types of loss. These labels are not intended to be all-encompassing definitions. Rather, they offer a kind of container with which to understand our grief experience. Some individuals may find this container a helpful tool, and others may find applying a label to their experience far too simplistic.
Death loss: this is perhaps the most fundamental, concrete loss that we humans grieve. When a living being that we care for, dies.
Traumatic or Sudden loss: death by suicide, overdose, violent crime, accident, or natural disaster
Medical loss: death by illness, disease, or natural causes
Non-Death loss: loss of something significant to an individual’s identity. This may be spiritual, physical, or emotional. Everyone experiences this type of loss throughout their lives, as it is an integral aspect of change (pre-change and post-change). Some of these losses affect individuals just as deeply as a death loss.
Ambiguous loss: loss of someone who is still living. A complicated experience that encompasses an unclear or unconfirmed loss. Examples include: loss due to incarceration, dementia or Alzheimer’s, loss due to addiction when the individual is still alive, or loss of a person who goes missing. This painful experience of loss is hallmarked by a lack of closure while grieving.
Secondary loss: additional, subsequent losses after a death loss occurs. When an individual’s loved one dies, they may come to experience secondary losses such as stability, a shared business or home, the friendships or relationships maintained through their deceased loved one, sense of purpose, or s support system. Secondary losses after a death may appear quite soon, or may have a ripple effect for years to come.
Cumulative loss: loss compounded with additional loss. A death loss is enough to grieve, and yet, some people experience death loss in succession. An individual may not have stabilized their grief after a first loss, when another death experience occurs, creating this cumulative loss effect. This may also be the experience of someone going through a traumatic experience like a natural disaster, where there many kinds of losses compile in one traumatic event.
Nonfinite loss: perhaps the most existential type of loss, which leads to grief over what an individual’s life could have been. When one’s life does not turn out as one had hoped and dreamed, there is a sense of loss. For the woman who wanted children she cannot have, or the athlete who has a career-ending injury, there is grief for the loss of a future they desired.
While these types of losses are not an end-all, be-all list, these definitions may assist in broadening your perspective on grief. We will all face loss throughout our lives; no one is spared. By honoring not only those death loss experiences, but the existential losses as well, we hope to more fully and authentically move through our lives engaging with the grief that we all carry.
Stay tuned for part two of this post, which will identify different types of grief.